


a softer world

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amaurot, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, shortened the title a bit when reposting it here tbh bc i wasn't sure later on, though the reference in the title is still the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23948140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: (written for the ktísis zine)the bitter epilogue deserves to be told sweetly, too.a lead up to the final act of amaurot.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous





	a softer world

Once upon a time, before Light, and before even the Darkness in which the Light glows so beautifully…

Is there such a thing?

Beauty? Yes. In spires that bloomed towards the sky, in stars that flowed like water, in souls that descended to the land. And seeing that the land was theirs, as all beauty is for there is no beauty like life, the souls tended to it with all their heart.

No, as before Darkness and Light?

Why wouldn’t there be? But it is just a time, as it is a time for dreams. And yet you want to hear of this.

I do. I’m sorry.

Don’t be, for this is a dream as well. And in that time, long lost and yet ever near, there were fourteen siblings.

So many?

And many more, for the souls held all as kith and kin. The world was theirs, as all beautiful things are, and there is nothing more beautiful than a living soul. These fourteen were the most radiant, perhaps, as their people chose them. For that, they became more devoted still, and in their labor more glorious.

I heard it was thirteen. (Twelve.) Fourteen and the last was born with scale and fang. (Fourteen and the last had a coat of purest white, while all its siblings were the color of ink, of shadow and of night).

You are right, my dear.

Which one is it?

For now, it is thirteen, and fourteen with a heavy, broken heart. For they loved each other dearly, more than the Underworld can ever contain, and thus disagreement was an unfathomably bitter pill. Would that it were only that.

I heard it was stubbornness. (A lover’s quarrel.) A contest- (and the fourteenth was to judge).

If you keep asking, I shall not tell you. 

Yet, it was a time for dreams. Which did not make it any less real, as you are real, or any less alive. It just meant that when it ended, it ended as dreams do. Sweetness turned to ash. The skies crumbled, the land fell through their hands as sand does through your fingers. Air breathed into lungs burned, words so much as thought were lead and poison flowing down their throats. The Sun sunk low, and the Moon grew ever more distant in fear and in fury…

Did they live?

Some did. The fourteen did, to their sorrow. For how could they live, the guardians with so many beloved charges lost, the caretakers with nothing left to care for. The dream turned to a nightmare, their masks covering their eyes to shield who few remained from their own pain. 

Shall I continue? 

Yes. (No.) You have to. (Is this real?)

As real as you and I. 

The fourteen gathered who they could. Offered succor as they could. The Knight-Star would wage their combat and carve safety for those dreamers that yet lingered. The Protector would shepherd them to safety, and under the care of the Holy Queen did they find order and in order peace. The Speaker spoke with those of the living, giving them hope as he wove and wrote and wove and wrote again a way to make those hopes into reality as tangible as you and I are. And the Angel watching over the Underworld would speak with the dead, hearing their pains and their sorrows and guiding them to true peace, their power lent to the Speaker’s strength.

Did it work? (Could it work?)

It could work. Would work. Alas, they were missing a crucial component.

The warm cover of night? (The glow from a single star?) The footfalls of a cat? (A tear from laughter?) 

All of those, yes. There would be no world without things such as those, of course. But above all, they wanted for a soul, and that stalled them. For souls were endlessly precious, and rare in their beauty, for it was the one thing that none of their magics could conjure. Not for love, not for strength. It came with natural life, and with natural life it fell to the Underworld to rise anew.

I don’t like where this is going.

So they debated among themselves, these thirteen and fourteen with their broken heart. On and on they would have gone, was the world not dead under their feet and burning-cold in their chests. Drawing names, discarding names, for it would have to be among them and among themselves only that the surrendered soul could come. They could ask it of none of their charges; they should ask it of none but themselves. And yet, were they all to fade, the Speaker’s grand design of laws and life would come to naught.

Who went?

In the end, it was one. With coat of pristine white, untainted by life, joy or sorrow. With heart of purest sound, to take in other melodies and weave it with his own, that he may accomplish his mission ever with all his world in mind. It was, as he said, the only choice. It could not be the Speaker for the living, or the Angel for the dead, or they would break out in sorrow and pain and thus prevent the summoning. It could not be the Holy Queen who ruled with order, or the Seraph who ruled through her heart, for they would tilt the balance too far to one side or the other, and in that break the new laws to be imposed. And without his world to travel, without his counterpart yet with them…

Did they die? (Did they live?) Did they leave? (Did they know?)

He was mourned, inasmuch as there was mourning to spare. The songs all went to the precepts being woven, wound tight around his heart as it stopped its beat, made into a new rhythm. The thoughts all went to new forms, new lives, even as his was spent beat by beat, concept by concept, all as it should be.

But did they know?

Oh, they did. And they mourned most of all, this last one with a broken heart. No longer the fourteenth, for there would only be thirteen now, even as the Keeper of Precepts kept his Heart alive. No longer loved and loving, for there was little to love that was not the summoned being and little to be loved by that was not them, too. Though they tried, and tried, and tried.

I don’t like how it ends. (Does it end?) It’s lonely. 

So it is. But we never are.

I am always with you, after all. Just hear…

Feel. (Think.)


End file.
